OT: 300 anticipation

[Domitius Ulpianus]

Oh I wasn't offended, just thouroghly confused. It was kind of hard to tell if you were being ironic all the time with the "tyrant of the axis of evil" comment and then linking to a site with a speech from Dick Cheney.



Well, that's a question of personal prefference, isn't it. From the looks of things, 300 will certainly be trashy in many regards but I still hope to enjoy it. The way I see it there's room for both quality and "spectacular crap" when it comes to fiction set against historical backgrounds. Sure there's Shakespeare and Robert Graves, but if someone'd rather read Conn Iggulden I don't see any reason to get pissed about it.



Actually I think both of those are worse because people might actually believe that they're telling the true stories whereas 300 is just to over-the-top to be taken seriously. That doesn't mean that 300 will be a better movie, just that you'd have to be pretty gullible to actually take it at face value.



Well that would say more about the state of education today than anything else, wouldn't it? And I'm not saying that everyone should know the details of ancient Sparta, just that you'd expect people to be capable of separating good sources from bad ones, 300 being completely off the scale in that regard.

In closing, I think it's better when fiction is very honest about being just fiction, as in the case of 300. I think its much more likely that people whose only knowledge of the Roman Empire comes from Gladiator will be saying: "So... Commodus murdered Marcus Aurelius, but then a general-turned gladiator killed him in the arena and restored the republic and everyone lived happily ever after? Great, got it!"

Couldn't agree more. Accusing 300 of not being historically accurate is like accussing hot dogs for not being "fine cuisine"....In both cases they never had that pretention!!!.... now if the Director of 300 would have said "Im showing you Sparta and Persia as they were. THIS IS 100% truth"....Then we would have a problem..and believe me I would be VERY angry about it...just because I don't like liars. But he never say that, did he?

So please tell me you didn't like it because the special effects were bad, because you saw a microfone hanging in the back or because you found it was plain boring....but don't tell me you didn't like it because its not historicallly accurate.

[GodEmperorLeto]

I am getting my MA in classical history, and I intend to get my PhD in the future. That being said, I'll be honest, I'm always surprised by just how much I find accurate in these movies, despite the mistakes.

Yes, 300 is going to be ridiculously stylized. The comic, though, had many strains of truth. The Spartans wore linen corselets and had the sideways crest, yes, but the nakedness comes from how, when the Spartiate boys were inducted, they were stripped of their clothes and given only a red cloak to wear. The Carneia was truly a reason that the Spartans couldn't march, and Leonidas did say he was going for a walk with his bodyguard. Herodotus reports that the Pythia said that Sparta would have to lose a king, and that was left out of the comic, but what the heck?

The movie is made to definitely be artsy, yeah, but honestly, how many artsy movies are there with blood, slaughter, and everything a single guy with bad luck with women would ever want to see to forget his romantic troubles? Very few. Most art movies are about lesbians and how George W. Bush is supposedly Adolf Hitler reincarnated. The Ephors are stylized as old and gross, the Persians as an army of slave-soldiers. But to the Greeks, they were slaves. Proskynesis was proof to the Greeks.

Rhinos and elephants, though, are gross overkill.

Nevertheless, I'm going, paying $5 at the matinee, buying a $3.50 popcorn and a $2.50 soda, sitting back, smiling, and enjoying a story about guys kicking butt and taking names. Which is all I ever wanted in a movie about Spartans. They could have set the movie on Mars and had Leonidas fight the tripods from War of the Worlds alongside Marvin the Martian, and it would still rock, because of Frank Miller and Spartans.

That being said, yeah, Miller's best work was Ronin as previously mentioned.

Now, a movie I would kill to see done accurately and faithfully would be Xenophon's Anabasis. My God, that would be ridiculously awesome, but that is definitely something I'd fear Hollywood butchering.

[Watchman]

The Spartans wore linen corselets...

They did ? I read somewhere they had a bit of an all-or-nothing attitude to body armour - either solid bronze or leave it off entirely...

[Xtiaan72]

Xtiann72, I take offense to the fact that I will see any movie with a dude raising a sword, including bad ones.PS. I don't have to pay 12 dollars to watch a movie, it's called Blockbuster. Then you go on to say you watched all the movies I watched. Nice self-domination

- Brightblade


Dude, you take offense a little to easily. Good for you if you didn't pay 12 dollars to see Troy or Alexander in the movie theatre, they're both horrible movies.. I'm glad you saved a few bucks watching them on video. I tried to watch them on cable but fell asleep. If you got some enjoyment out of them I really don't know what to say.

But that doesn't change the fact that Troy and Alexander are terrible movies with guys waving swords in the air. There are movies that demand to be seen on the big screen and are worth the 12 bucks. You haven't seen Gladiator unless you've seen it on the big screen. If you haven't seen Alexander then you lucky! That's all I'm saying. Peace out.

[keravnos]

I cannot participate on this thread any longer since I have just seen the movie and can only ask you the following?

Do you know the name of the Spartan king who won the Peloponnesian war for Sparta? Its greatest victory? No?

Ok, then, who commanded in its most glorious defeat?

Λ

[Kugutsu]

Now, a movie I would kill to see done accurately and faithfully would be Xenophon's Anabasis. My God, that would be ridiculously awesome, but that is definitely something I'd fear Hollywood butchering.

I think that would be better as a series than a movie. It is too epic and too drawn out to make a good film, while a series of episodes would capture the ongoing adventure very well, I think.

[Brightblade]

Yeah , kind of the argument for us LOTR geeks that would have liked to see The Silmarillion become a movie rather than the War of the Ring books... I mean.. dragons, dozens of Balrogs, hundred thousand strong Elf armies!

Oh wait I'm preaching to the wrong choir here. /hides